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Ras Adiba Radzi returns -- with a new spin

When a reporter asked the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, an innocuous question about the former newscaster, Ras Adiba Radzi, he made it clear he would not answer any questions about her. She had told the world she needed RM300,000 for a desperately-needed operation in Australia, got RM90,000 more, the funds rolling in after Dr Mahathir and his wife, the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and his wife, and others called on her at Pantai Medical Centre in Kuala Lumpur. She was paralysed. The treatment she needed was not available in Malaysia. And off she went.

But she did not consult specialists in Malaysia about her problem, she had had a titanium implant on her spin checked, and wanted that done by the orthopaedic surgeon who had inserted it. But all she needed was pysiotherapy. When she was caught out, she changed her story, and now on her return refuses to explain how the RM340,000 -- she says she did not receive the RM390,000 promised -- was used up. She explains blithely,on her return, the more she explains, the more the misunderstanding. She insists she had two operations in Australia -- which is technically correct as lancing a boil is an operation as much as cardiac bypass surgery is. But the surgery she underwent was not for which the funds were collected.

No one denies she is in pain, is confined to a wheel chair, is incontent, should have a better life. But the long and short of it is she took Malaysians for an expensive ride. She sold her ten-year0old Proton car and threw the proceeds into the fund, but kept quiet about her apartment in Pantai Hills or the new apartment she bought in Suasana Centra for RM1.1 million for which she paid a RM30,000 deposit just weeks before she was attacked outside her mother's home which brought her into the Pantai Medical Centre. But with the Prime Minister and senior ministers and UMNO officials backing her, the money was raised quickly -- and she left in such a hurry that an Australian diplomat rushed to the airport with her visa. It now appears it was clear from the start she did not need the operations for which the funds were collected. All she needed was to check on her titanium implant and undergo physiotherapy. She took Malaysians for an expensive ride.

What an expensive ride. It is not how she spent the RM340,000 donated for her treatment that is now the issue. Because of what she did, the government has had to subject others needing public funds for medical treatment to bureaucractic rigamarole. All public requests for funds for medical treatment must now be vetted by a committee headed by the Director-General of Health. There is now a Yayasan Negara, a National Foundation, to which all public donations should now be sent. The rules are tightened because of what one Ras Adiba Radzi did with the funds collected on her behalf. The Prime Minister and all the political bigwigs who rushed to her aid are embarrassed beyond belief, and would not want to hear her name ever again.

She cannot now say she will not reveal how the money was spent, or that her physiotherapy in Australia -- so good she says that Malaysians must emulate that here -- cost more than she expected. The money was collected for a major operation. That was never on the cards. So, she took the money under false pretences. That is why she is held to task, and the government having to step in and initiatiate new proceedures that will only ensure that many deserving of public support would die because bureaucrasy intervenes. This is why every one is angry about what has happened.

No one doubts she is in pain and needs help. But it should not be in such a way that all who contributed to her treatment now feels cheated. She must come clean with how much funds were collected, who supervised the donations, and how it was spent. It will no doubt embarrass her. She is in pain. Others are too. She is incontinent. Others are too. She is confined to a wheel chair. Others are too. She has funds that would, in normal circumstances, not have qualified her for public donations. She hid that. She went to Australia for a medical checkup and physiotherapy, for which facilities are widely available here at a fraction of what it cost her. Others who are not so well connected or with no friends in high places have no option but to die.

On her return, she continues her spin, but her embarrassment is clear. No Malaysian reporter asked her the questions she should have been asked. But then few Malaysian reporters do. The embarrassment is clear. The government hopes this would fade away as other scandals in the past. It might. It might not. But it is equally important for those who contributed to the RM390,000 to explain why they twisted their staff's arms to force them to contribute. It is possible the RM50,000 was withheld after the scam broke. Ras Adiba had no right to spend the extra RM40,000 because all she asked for was RM300,000. Companies on the verge of bankruptcy, who could not meet their baills, threw caution to the winds to break the rules to contribute. At the end of it all, it seems to be a government attempt to portray itself as a caring government by focussing attention on a high-profile personality in need of medical help. Only that it was misdirected. All this experience showed is that the government is quite happy to be taken for a ride -- especially if a pretty face is involved. It is another albatross on its neck.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my